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In the late 1970s, Dr. Aubrey Daniels coined the term ‘performance management’ to describe a technology for managing both behavior and results. Today, companies with contact centers concerned with performance management and coaching, which was further defined in 1998 by Michael Armstrong and Angela Baron as a “strategic and integrated approach to increasing the effectiveness of organizations by improving the performance of the people who work in them and by developing the capabilities of teams and individual contributors,” know that consistency in application is one key to success. Another is choosing a technology vendor that understands the principles of performance management and agent coaching so true success can be realized.

One company that belongs in that category is Envision, which provides solutions to optimize people, process and business performance by taking agent development, call center efficiency and customer satisfaction to what it describes as “new levels.”

It does so with its Envision Performance Suite, designed to maximize call center efficiency and effectiveness through the seamless integration of its core call center software applications, including quality monitoring, e-learning, workforce management and analytics. The Envision Performance Suite is delivered within a robust Web-based platform called Envision Centricity, which provides a fully integrated set of management tools that aim to improve agent effectiveness, and call center and enterprise performance through workforce optimization.

Expanding on that, the Envision Centricity3 Approach encompasses Team Centricity, Business Centricity and Customer Centricity. Within the Customer Centricity Approach, Envision focuses on the unique business needs of each customer and tailors solutions specifically to meet them. This allows customers to exert their focus and energy where it belongs – on performance management, coaching and their customers. Taking that a giant step further, Envision offers its customers what it calls Executive Direct.

Basically, Executive Direct provides every Envision customer with direct access to Envision’s executive management team, as and when they need it. The company likens its Executive Direct program to the ‘Bat Phone’ (News - Alert) in the comic/TV/movie series Batman (and Robin) where police Commissioner Gordon’s bright red phone was used to reach the ‘dynamic duo’ when there was trouble in Gotham city. The analogy rings true because Executive Direct is set up to allow immediate, convenient and flexible access to Envision executive management if for any reason the customer’s direct contact at Envision is unable to help with a challenge. The customer is free to use his or her contact method of choice, including e-mail, phone or web to reach the team. Envison says the guarantee is as simple as the program – use every one of the prescribed methods for submitting an inquiry (including phone, email or Web) and receive a direct response from an appropriate member of the executive management team within 48 business hours of the request.

By providing an avenue to go straight to the top to connect with the Envision executive management team, Envision enables its customers to spend their time focusing on their primary objectives of performance management, agent coaching and customer satisfaction.

In other news, TMCnet reported that Envision, a global provider of workforce optimization (WFO) solutions and creator of Click2Coach, has recently released a white paper, which analyzes benefits of targeted coaching and gives progressive call centers practical roadmap for implementation.

Linda Dobel is a TMCnet Contributor. She has been an editor in the contact center space for more than 25 years, and has the distinction of being the founding editor of Customer Inter@ction Solutions (CIS) magazine. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.